Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘Can you blame me?’ I said. ‘Who would want to pick that card?’

‘More tea?’ asked Hugo Rune, and he poured it. ‘Pick us another then, do.’

And so I chose THE MOON. ‘It looks harmless,’ I explained. ‘And there was a lovely moon last night. THE MOON shall be our talisman, as it were.’

‘Have a care, Rizla,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘You are beginning to think in the manner of a magician. And little good ever came from that!’ And then he popped one of my pickled eggs into his mouth and challenged me to a game of leapfrog on the poop deck.

When done with that, we dabbled in deck quoits, a chukka of cabin-boy polo, kept our hands in at korfball and waterskied a while behind the liner. And as the sun sank slowly in the west, we returned to our staterooms and dolled ourselves up for dinner.

My suit was laid out on my bunk before me, neatly pressed and made fragrant with what I supposed to be an expensive cologne. My shirt too was laundered and luxuriated within a cellophane sleeve. I unfolded this shirt and gave it a sniff and it too smelled most sweetly.

‘I could really get used to this,’ I said, for such treatment merits such clichés. And so I bathed and dried and gave myself a good all-over spraying with the complimentary bottle that held a prominent position on my toiletry table.

I then togged up in my finery and, growing just a tad dizzy from all the stuff I had sprayed on myself and others had sprayed on my clothes, I tottered out of my stateroom and went in search of dinner.

As Hugo Rune had yet to arrive, I seated myself in my reserved and comfy dining chair, ordered something preposterous from the drinks menu and wondered how many master forgers or post-modernist mistresses I could spy out amongst the gorgeously attired and moneyed classes.

They came and went before me, a cavalcade of opulence, the jeunesse dorée and the nouveau riche rubbing padded shoulders with nabobs and Plutocrats, patricians, princes and panjandrums. And would not you know it, or would not you not, they turned up their noses to me. In fact those that drew near to myself became decidedly sniffy. They dabbed at their upraised nostrils with initialled handkerchiefs and nosegays, made haughty disapproving sounds and hurried on their way.

I took a tentative sniff at myself, which caused my eyes to smart. ‘Note to self,’ I noted to myself. ‘Do not go so heavy on the free smelly stuff in future.’

My drink arrived and I sipped at it and wondered where Mr Rune was. The last thing he had said to me before we went our separate ways was, ‘Dinner promptly at eight, young Rizla.’

So what had become of him? I glanced down at my wristlet watch, and it was eight twenty-five.

At eight twenty-eight a bellboy appeared clasping a note in gloved fingers.

I unfolded this note and read the words on it. And at these my blood ran cold.

Please come at once

to the Stateroom Suite of

Lord Hugo Rune

read this note,

for he has been taken gravely ill

and may not survive until morning.

I ran to the double-bunk side of the ailing Mr Rune, my hands a-flap and both my knees a-knocking.

Doctors and various medics of that well-spoken order that attend to the needs of the rich, and will always sign them off with a sick note even if they do not really need one, stood about looking concerned and eager to apply all manner of brand-new medical equipment, much of it involving valves and wires and electrodes.

I pushed in amongst them and stared at my sickly friend. He did not look that sickly, as it happened. It looked more as if he was just having a little nap before getting stuck into his dinner.

‘What is wrong with him?’ I asked. ‘The message said that he was on his last legs.’

‘Exhaustion,’ said a medic with one of those circular mirror-things strapped upon his forehead. ‘Brought on by too much waterskiing this afternoon, I suspect.’

‘Then why did the message imply that he was dying?’

‘I don’t know what message you mean,’ said the medical type. ‘I never sent any message – did any of you send any message?’

His colleagues did shruggings of shoulders and shakings of heads. ‘Well, someone sent it,’ I said. ‘I have it here.’ But I did not have it there. ‘I must have dropped it on the way,’ I said.

‘And just who are you?’ asked a nurse, a shapely nurse with a pinched-in waist and large protruding bosoms.

‘I am Mr Rune’s closest friend. His aide and confidant. He is my mentor, my-’

But I did not finish what I had to say, which might have taken so much time to say if I had, because suddenly I was being pushed from the room.

‘He is in capable hands,’ said another medically inclined fellow, this one with an electric stethoscope about his neck. ‘You go off and enjoy your dinner – it is grilled coelacanth tonight, I understand, prepared with Oyster Fall in Ponze dressing, topped carefully with grounded mouille and spring onions. Served with garden salad.’

‘Is it?’ I said. ‘That sounds tasty. But I had better stay here with my friend. I really do think it would be for the best.’

But the medical personnel were having absolutely none of it whatsoever. Mr Rune was now under their professional care, he would be fussed over and looked after as befitted an exalted traveller in this floating palace and I was not to trouble myself, but rather go and enjoy my dinner.

And it had not escaped my notice that during the course of this conversation the medical team had been slapping surgical masks over their noses and turning their faces away.

It was that damned cologne that was doing for me once more.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I will leave. But I will be straight back here after dinner, so do not even think about locking the door and keeping me out.’

‘Enjoy your dinner,’ said one of these medics, although his voice was muffled by his mask.

As it happened I did not enjoy my dinner. I know what it was that I ordered, but what I ordered did not turn up on my plate. I ordered the soup, but I got fat bread rolls, all buttered. The steak, but I got a great big pie instead. The posh cheese and biscuits I wanted for afters, but I was served huge rolly pud. And so by the time I had finished, I was well and truly bloated and I had to loosen my cummerbund a couple of notches and engage the emergency gusset to the rear of my fitted trews.

And I do confess that I let out a terrible belch. Which did not increase my standing with the gentry. The waiter then brought me a milkshake and told me to drink it all up, because it was full of vitamins.

So it was with considerable effort that I attempted to rise and steer my patent-leather shoes towards my friend’s sick-bunk. I would have made it, though, if it had not been for the unexpected arrival of a very pretty girl, who seated herself down in Mr Rune’s chair and smiled most sweetly at me.

‘You are not going just yet, are you?’ she asked, and her eyelashes fluttered and she did pursings of the lips.

‘I have to go and see my friend,’ I said. ‘He has been taken ill.’

‘I’m sure he will be in good hands. The world’s finest medical experts are aboard this ship. Doctors from all over the globe, the cream of the catheter crop, as it were.’

‘I have no doubt of that,’ I said, sipping my milkshake. ‘Everything here is top notch.’

‘Including yourself,’ said this beautiful girl. Though I could not believe that she had.

‘We have not been introduced,’ I said, putting out my hand in the hope of touching hers. ‘My name is Rizla. What is yours?’

But the angel giggled prettily. ‘Rizla?’ she said. ‘What a wonderful name. I won’t tell you mine, it’s too dull.’